Sunday, January 30

crazylove

“Can you say with Paul that you ‘want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death’ [Phil. 3:10]? For a long time this verse had just too much Jesus for me. In my opinion, the verse should have ended after the word resurrection, so i could have an appealing, popular Jesus who didn’t suffer. the feedback I received from other Christians reassured me that his was a fine perspective, and it gave me little reason to strive to know Christ more deeply. I was told I was good enough, ‘godly enough’. But this went against everything I was reading in the Bible, so i eventually rejected what he majority said and began to compare all aspects of my life to Scripture. I quickly found that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live our New Testament Christianity. The goals of American Christianity ore often a nice marriage, children who don’t swear and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is rarely considered. That’s for the radicals who are unbalanced and who go overboard. most of us want a balanced life that we can control, that is safe, that does not involve suffering“ This is an excerpt from the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, pages 67 and 68. I encourage you to stew on it for a few days and leave a comment telling me what you think.

Love and Affection.Jennifer

PS. go to missionyear.org/donate/jennifermusicjoin with me as i grow this year!